SAN CLEMENTE : City to Spend $23,000 on Upgrading Jail

Responding to state recommendations, city officials are spending $23,000 for new equipment to bring the jail up to standard.

The expenditures include a $2,000 voice-activated monitoring system and $7,468 for steel and glass doors that will afford officers better visibility into cells.

Lt. Hector Rivera, the department’s services commander, said most of the new items were required by the Board of Corrections, which inspected the site in March.

In addition, the city is spending $3,800 on an inner booking cell, which was not required by the state, but which the city decided was needed to improve safety conditions.

Other items to be purchased and their estimated costs are a $300 spigot for the water faucet in the juvenile cell; a $2,700 monitored alarm system; 15 new mattresses for $1,500, and $5,000 for a year’s worth of disposable mattress covers.

Earlier this year, the City Council approved funding to hire five jailers to supervise prisoners, an area that drew low marks from an outside consultant reviewing city departments for cost efficiency.

The consultant’s report, released last month, said the jail, without the additional workers, “exposes the city to significant liability risk and violates state requirements.”

In addition to three main cells, the jail has separate cells for drunken prisoners, females and juveniles.